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Sydproven
Sydprøven, officially the Social Democratic Republic of Sydprøven, is a sovereign state situated on the southernmost extremity of the island of Greenland. The settled area of Sydprøven, called metropolitan Sydprøven, extends from the southeastern coast to the southwestern coast of the island. It is a social democratic federal presidential constitutional republic with the capital in Hovedstad, the country's largest city and main economic and cultural centre.The Constitution of Sydprøven establishes the state as secular and democratic, with its sovereignty derived from the people. While in domestic documents the nation's name appears as "Sydprøven", on international documents the name appears as "Sydproven". øå History Pre-Sydprøven & Greenland History Early Paleo-Eskimo cultures In prehistoric times, Greenland was home to several successive Paleo-Eskimo cultures known primarily through archaeological finds. The earliest entry of the Paleo-Eskimo into Greenland is thought to have occurred about 2500 BC. From around 2500 BC to 800 BC, southern and western Greenland was inhabited by the Saqqaq culture. Most finds of Saqqaq-period archaeological remains have been around Disko Bay, including the site of Saqqaq after which the culture is named. From 2400 BC to 1300 BC, the Independence I culture existed in northern Greenland. It was a part of the Arctic small tool tradition. Towns, including Deltaterrasserne, started to appear. Around 800 BC, the Saqqaq culture disappeared and the Early Dorset culture emerged in western Greenland and the Independence II culture in northern Greenland. The Dorset culture was the first culture to extend throughout the Greenlandic coastal areas, both on the west and east coasts, and it lasted until the total onset of the Thule culture in 1500 AD. The Dorset culture population lived primarily from hunting of whales and caribou. Norse settlement See also: Herjolfsnes (Norse Greenland) Kingittorsuaq Runestone from Kingittorsuaq Island (Middle ages). From 986, Greenland's west coast was settled by Icelanders and Norwegians, through a contingent of 14 boats led by Erik the Red. These settlers formed three settlements—known as the Eastern Settlement, the Western Settlement and the Middle Settlement—on fjords near the southwestern-most tip of the island. They shared the island with the late Dorset culture inhabitants who occupied the northern and western parts, and later with the Thule culture arriving from the north. Norse Greenlanders submitted to Norwegian rule in the 13th century, and the Kingdom of Norway entered into a personal union with Denmark in 1380, and from 1397 was a part of the Kalmar Union. The settlements, such as Brattahlíð, thrived for centuries but disappeared sometime in the 15th century, perhaps at the onset of the Little Ice Age. Apart from some runic inscriptions, no contemporary records or historiography survives from the Norse settlements. Icelandic saga accounts of life in Greenland were composed in the 13th century and later, and do not constitute primary sources for the history of early Greenland. Modern understanding therefore depends on the physical data. Interpretation of ice core and clam shell data suggests that between 800 and 1300, the regions around the fjords of southern Greenland experienced a relatively mild climate several degrees Celsius higher than usual in the North Atlantic, with trees and herbaceous plants growing and livestock being farmed. Barley was grown as a crop up to the 70th parallel. What is verifiable is that the ice cores indicate Greenland has experienced dramatic temperature shifts many times over the past 100,000 years. Similarly the Icelandic Book of Settlements records famines during the winters in which "the old and helpless were killed and thrown over cliffs". One of the last contemporary written mention of the Norse Greenlanders records a marriage which took place in 1408 in the church of Hvalsey—today the best-preserved Nordic ruins in Greenland. These Icelandic settlements vanished during the 14th and early 15th centuries. The demise of the Western Settlement coincides with a decrease in summer and winter temperatures. A study of North Atlantic seasonal temperature variability showed a significant decrease in maximum summer temperatures beginning in the late 13th century to early 14th century—as much as 6–8 °C lower than modern summer temperatures. The study also found that the lowest winter temperatures of the last 2000 years occurred in the late 14th century and early 15th century. The Eastern Settlement was likely abandoned in the early to mid-15th century, during this cold period. The condition of human bones from this period indicates that the Norse population was malnourished, probably due to soil erosion resulting from the Norsemen's destruction of natural vegetation in the course of farming, turf-cutting, and wood-cutting; pandemic plague; the decline in temperatures during the Little Ice Age; and armed conflicts with the Inuit. The Thule Culture (1300 – present) The Thule people are the ancestors of the current Greenlandic population, and no genes from the Paleo-Eskimos have been found in the present population of Greenland. The Thule Culture migrated from Alaska around 1000, reaching Greenland around 1300. The Thule culture was the first to introduce to Greenland such technological innovations as dog sleds and toggling harpoons. 1500–1814 In 1500, King Manuel I of Portugal sent Gaspar Corte-Real to Greenland in search of a Northwest Passage to Asia which, according to the Treaty of Tordesillas, was part of Portugal's influence. In 1501, Corte-Real returned with his brother, Miguel Corte-Real. Finding the sea frozen, they headed south and arrived in Labrador and Newfoundland. Upon the brothers' return to Portugal, the cartographic information supplied by Corte-Real was incorporated into a new map of the world which was presented to Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, by Alberto Cantino in 1502. The Cantino planisphere, made in Lisbon, accurately depicts the southern coastline of Greenland. In 1605–1607, King Christian IV of Denmark sent a series of expeditions to Greenland and Arctic waterways to locate the lost eastern Norse settlement and assert Danish sovereignty over Greenland. The expeditions were mostly unsuccessful, partly due to leaders who lacked experience with the difficult arctic ice and weather conditions, and partly because the expedition leaders were given instructions to search for the Eastern Settlement on the east coast of Greenland just north of Cape Farewell, which is almost inaccessible due to southward drifting ice. The pilot on all three trips was English explorer James Hall. A 1747 map based on Egede's descriptions and misconceptions. After the Norse settlements died off, the area came under the de facto control of various Inuit groups, but the Danish government never forgot or relinquished the claims to Greenland that it had inherited from the Norwegians; and when contact with Greenland was re-established in the early 18th century, Denmark asserted its sovereignty over the island. In 1721, a joint mercantile and clerical expedition led by Danish-Norwegian missionary Hans Egede was sent to Greenland, not knowing whether a Norse civilization remained there. The expedition can be seen as part of the Dano-Norwegian colonization of the Americas. After 15 years in Greenland, Hans Egede left his son Paul Egede in charge of the mission in Greenland and returned to Denmark where he established a Greenland Seminary. This new colony was centred at Godthåb ("Good Hope") on the southwest coast. Gradually, Greenland was opened up to Danish merchants, and closed to those from other countries. Treaty of Kiel to World War II Eirik Raudes Land When the union between the crowns of Denmark and Norway was dissolved in 1814, the Treaty of Kiel severed Norway's former colonies and left them under the control of the Danish monarch. Norway occupied then-uninhabited eastern Greenland as Erik the Red's Land in July 1931, claiming that it constituted terra nullius. Norway and Denmark agreed to submit the matter in 1933 to the Permanent Court of International Justice, which decided against Norway. Greenland's connection to Denmark was severed on 9 April 1940, early in World War II, when Denmark was occupied by Nazi Germany. On 8 April 1941, the United States occupied Greenland to defend it against a possible invasion by Germany. The United States occupation of Greenland continued until 1945. Greenland was able to buy goods from the United States and Canada by selling cryolite from the mine at Ivittuut. The major air bases were Bluie West-1 at Narsarsuaq and Bluie West-8 at Søndre Strømfjord (Kangerlussuaq), both of which are still used as Greenland's major international airports. Bluie was the military code name for Greenland. During this war, the system of government changed: Governor Eske Brun ruled the island under a law of 1925 that allowed governors to take control under extreme circumstances; Governor Aksel Svane was transferred to the United States to lead the commission to supply Greenland. The Danish Sirius Patrol guarded the northeastern shores of Greenland in 1942 using dogsleds, detecting several German weather stations and alerting American troops who then destroyed them. After the collapse of the Third Reich, Albert Speer briefly considered escaping in a small aeroplane to hide out in Greenland, but changed his mind and decided to turn himself in to the United States Armed Forces. Greenland had been a protected and very isolated society until 1940. The Danish government had maintained a strict monopoly of Greenlandic trade, allowing only small scale troaking with Scottish whalers. Nevertheless, wartime Greenland developed a sense of self-reliance through self-government and independent communication with the outside world. Despite this change, in 1946 a commission including the highest Greenlandic council, the Landsrådene, recommended patience and no radical reform of the system. Two years later, the first step towards a change of government was initiated when a grand commission was established. A final report (G-50) was presented in 1950: Greenland was to be a modern welfare state with Denmark as sponsor and example. In 1953 Greenland was made an equal part of the Danish Kingdom. Home rule was granted in 1979. Home rule and self-rule The orthography and vocabulary of the Greenlandic language was governed by Oqaasileriffik, the Greenlandic language secretariat, located in the Ilimmarfik University of Greenland in Nuuk. Inuk Silis Høegh talking about the history of Home rule - WOMEX 15, Budapest Following World War II, the United States developed a geopolitical interest in Greenland, and in 1946 the United States offered to buy Greenland from Denmark for $100,000,000, but Denmark refused to sell it. In the 21st century, the United States, according to Wikileaks, remains to be highly interested in investing in the resource base of Greenland and in tapping hydrocarbons off the Greenlandic coast. In 1950 Greenland was reintroduced into the sphere of military influence of the United States when Denmark agreed to allow the US to reestablish Thule Air Base, which was greatly expanded between 1951 and 1953 as part of a unified NATO Cold War defence strategy. The local population of three nearby villages was moved over 100 kilometres (62 mi) away in the winter. A secret attempt by the United States to construct a subterranean network of nuclear missile launch sites in the Greenlandic ice cap named Project Iceworm was carried out from Camp Century from 1960 to 1966 before being abandoned as unworkable. The Danish government did not become aware of the programme's actual mission until 1997, when it was discovered while looking for records related to the crash of a nuclear-equipped B-52 bomber at Thule in 1968. With the 1953 Danish constitution, Greenland's colonial status ended as the island was incorporated into the Danish realm as an amt (county), also extending Danish citizenship to Greenlanders. This also resulted in a change in Danish policies toward Greenland that consisted of a strategy of cultural assimilation—or de-Greenlandification. During this period, the Danish government promoted the exclusive use of Danish in official matters, and required Greenlanders to go to Denmark for their post-secondary education; many Greenlandic children grew up in boarding schools in southern Denmark, many losing their cultural ties to Greenland. While the policies "succeeded" in the sense of creating a demographic shift turning Greenlanders from being primarily subsistence hunters into being urbanized wage earners, the policy also backfired to produce a reassertion of Greenlandic cultural identity by the Greenlandic elite, leading to a movement in favour of independence that reached its peak in the 1970s. Pre-Revolution As a consequence of political complications about Denmark's entry into the European Common Market in 1959, a further desire to establish the legality of Greenland's status formed in Denmark. It resulted in the Home Rule Act of 1960, which gave Greenland limited autonomy with its legislature taking control of some internal policies. The Parliament of Denmark maintained full control of external systems, security, and natural resources. The law came into effect on 1 May 1961. The Queen of Denmark, Margrethe II, remained Greenland's Head of the state. In 1962, Greenland left the European Economic Community (EEC) upon achieving self-rule, given the EEC's commercial fishing regulations and an EEC ban on seal skin products. A referendum on greater autonomy was approved on 25 November 1978. On 21 June 1979, Greenland gained self-rule with provisions for assuming responsibility for self-government of judicial affairs, policing, and natural resources. Also, Greenlanders were recognized as a separate people under international law. Denmark maintains control of foreign affairs and defense matters. Denmark upholds the annual block grant of 3.2 billion Danish kroner, but as Greenland begins to collect revenues from its natural resources, the grant will gradually be diminished. It is considered by some to be a step toward eventual full independence from Denmark. Greenlandic became the sole official language of Greenland at the historic ceremony. Revolution & Independence In 1992, the small city of Sydprøven started revolting against the government due to the increasing debt, lowering the vital resources of the town. At first, the revolts were ineffective. The distance between the city and Nuuk, the capital, were too long. In 1993, the revolutions slowly came to a stop. In 1994, the surrounding cities joined the revolts. The revolts were stronger this time. The US started arming the rebels, in exchange for valuable minerals. In early 1995, high-profile individuals began to harshly criticize and question both governments of Greenland and Denmark. Eventually, all surrounding towns joined the revolution. Denmark began sending troops to aid in defense. US intelligence communicated this to the rebels, who started Operation Uniden, similar to the Nazi's Blitzkrieg strategy. Within 24 hours, Nuuk fell to the rebels. On December 21, 1995, Greenland declares Independence from Denmark. The capital is moved to Sydprøven and renamed Hovestad. Greenlandic was abolished because it was seen as a tie to old Greenland, and the Sydprøven population did not like the old regime. Post Revolution & Alliance Era Dharan Empire (1996-2002) Sydprøven joined the Dharan Empire (stylised as "DHaran Empire") in 1996 after having received an invitation from Lord Rahl Pax of Dhara . During this time, Sydprøven's social and economic activity flourished. During this time, Sydpøven received enormous pressure from Kastor of Iridocyclitis to rid itself of farms, leading to the Agricultural Mass Exodus in 1997. Crops were then started to be imported from other countries. Kastor of Iridocyclitis was later banned from the Dharan Empire for thievery. Personal Alliances In 1997, Sydprøven began forming personal alliances with big and small nations. On October 16, Sydprøven signed separate ToAs with Canada and Entakuq. On October 17, an ODP was signed with Canada. On October 28, Sydprøven signed a ToA and an ODP with Khevin. Another ToA was signed on November 9 with Australia. Sydprøven attempted to sign a ToA with Kastor of Iridocyclitis on February 14, 1998, but Kastor did not sign. The last recorded personal alliance was signed with the French Republic on May 5, 1998. It is believed that more treaties were signed, but most records were erased because most of the nations either fell to barbaric invasions and raids, such as Entakuq, or became occupied or annexed by another state, such as the French Republic. In the years that continued, many cities arose and Sydprøven expanded northward. In 1999, Sydprøven switched from coal energy to nuclear energy in an attempt to go "green" and power the nation more effectively. In early 2001, tensions between major alliances arose. The Dharan Empire, being one of the top alliances, started to prepare for what could be a major war. In middle 2001, war erupted. "Arrgh!" attacked the Dharan Empire. Sydprøven was not hit. While the Dharan Empire defended itself well at first, it soon became evident that they were ill prepared for the a long duration of war. By late 2001, "Arrgh!" severely weakened the Dharan Empire. The war ended, but "Arrgh!" conducted massive raids on the already-weakened countries of the Dharan Empire, up to the point to where the Lord Rahl (after having survived a violent terrorist attack that left him in critical condition) decided that the alliance was too weak to stand up by itself. In early 2002, he ordered all the members to merge to the alliance Empire of the Rose, another big alliance that had fought and won in the war, and that was allied to the Dharan Empire. On March 10, 2002, Sydprøven left the Dharan Empire and joined Rose. Empire of the Rose (2002-current) Being one of the Dharan mergers, Sydprøven was immediately offered a grant from the bank of Rose to rebuild. Initially refusing the grant (as they hadn't been attacked and did not need to rebuild), Sydprøven later accepted the $10M grant to expand, build and improve. On May 7, 2002, Sydprøven annexed Nuuk, the former capital of Greenland, and its surrounding territories. The city was re-renamed Godthåb. Terrain Although the nation of Sydprøven occupies it, the island's name remains Greenland. The weight of the ice sheet has depressed the central land area to form a basin lying more than 300 m (984 ft) below sea level while elevations rise suddenly and steeply near the coast. The ice flows to the coast from the center of the island. A survey led by French scientist Paul-Emile Victor in 1951 concluded that, of the ice sheet, three large islands compose Greenland. That is disputed, but if it is so, they would be separated by narrow straits, reaching the sea at Ilulissat Icefjord, at Greenland's Grand Canyon and south of Nordostrundingen. All towns and settlements of Greenland occupy the ice-free coast, with the population being concentrated along the west coast. The northeastern part of Greenland is not part of any municipality, but it is the site of the world's largest national park, Northeast Greenland National Park. Southern Greenland lives up to its name as it is truly a green land. Agriculture thrives here with many farms and luxuriant vegetables, in contrast to a barren ice world that covers much of Greenland. The extreme north of Greenland, Peary Land, is not covered by an ice sheet because the air there is too dry to produce snow.That is essential in the production and maintenance of an ice sheet. If the Greenland ice sheet were to melt away completely, the world's sea level would rise by more than 7 m (23 ft). Climate The 1310 m-high Qaqugdluit-mountain-land on the south side of the peninsula Nugssuaq, situated 50 km W of the Greenland inland ice at 70° 7’50.92"N 51°44’30.52"W, is exemplary of the numerous mountain areas of West-Greenland. Up to the year 1979 it shows Historical to Holocene, i.e. Postglacial glacier stages dating back at least 7000 and at most c. 10 000 years. In 1979, the glacier tongues came to an end – according to the extent and height of the glacier nourishing area – between 660 and 140 m above sea-level. The pertinent climatic glacier- snowline (ELA) ran at c. 800 m in height. The snowline of the oldest of the three Holocene glacier stages ran c. 230 m deeper, i.e. at c. 570 m in height. The four youngest glacier stages are of a Historical age. They have to be classified as belonging to the global glacier advances in the years 1811 to 1850 and 1880 to 1900 ("Little Ice Age"), 1910 to 1930, 1948 and 1953. Their snowlines rose step by step up to the level of 1979. The current snowline runs nearly unchanged. During the oldest Postglacial Stage VII an ice-stream-network from valley glaciers joining each other, has completely covered the landscape. Its nourishing areas consisted of high-lying plateau-glaciers and local ice caps. Due to the uplift of the snowline about that c. 230 m – what corresponds to a warming about c. 1.5 °C –, since 1979 there exists a plateau- glaciation with small glacier tongues hanging down on the margins that nearly did not reach the main valley bottoms anymore. Sydproven Sydproven Sydproven